


i held on with wires

by folignos



Category: Hockey RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 13:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2653106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folignos/pseuds/folignos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘I was gonna take some of the guys out for dinner when you get into town tomorrow, you gonna come?’</p>
<p>Silence on the other end of the phone.</p>
<p>‘Shawsy?’ Brandon tries.</p>
<p>‘No,’ Andy says, and hangs up.</p>
<p>Brandon looks at his phone for a long few moments, and slides it back into his pocket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i held on with wires

**Author's Note:**

  * For [titaniumsporkery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/titaniumsporkery/gifts).



> what's this? two fics in two days? wow do i spoil you guys.
> 
> anyway, aaron asked me why shawsy didn't go out to dinner with bolly and the guys in calgary. this uh, happened.
> 
> title from cold war kids' skip the charades, the unofficial theme song for the brandon bollig trade.
> 
> follow me on [tumblr](toewses.tumblr.com) for more hockey nonsense!

‘I was gonna take some of the guys out for dinner when you get into town tomorrow, you gonna come?’

Silence on the other end of the phone.

‘Shawsy?’ Brandon tries.

‘No,’ Andy says, and hangs up.

Brandon looks at his phone for a long few moments, and slides it back into his pocket.

-

Dinner is great, delicious, fun, enthusiastic. It’s awesome seeing the guys again, especially Clenny, who he hasn’t seen since last season’s training camp. Brandon promises that he’s going to take Clenny’s head off if he catches him on the ice. Clenny laughs, and Crow frowns disapprovingly.

‘Please don’t break him. We’re running low on D-men as is,’ he says mildly. ‘It would suck if we had to fly another one out.’

Brandon laughs, and punches Clenny in the shoulder. He punches back, and it all goes downhill from there.

He keeps checking his phone.

-

‘I’m hanging up.’

‘Andy...’ Brandon’s in his condo, perched on one of the barstools in the kitchen. His shirt sleeves are rolled up past the elbow and he’s resting his head in one hand.

‘Don’t call me that.’

Brandon pauses.

‘Shawsy,’ he starts, but Andy hangs up anyway.

-

He doesn’t find out Andy’s scratched for the game until he’s on the ice and can’t see sixty five warming up.

He slides into a stretch at centre ice and waits for Mo to drop down next to him.

‘Where’s Shawsy?’ he asks, casual. Mo sees straight through him.

‘Concussion, probably from the Dallas game. It’s mild, he’s only gonna miss a couple of games, but he’s kind of under hotel room arrest for the Alberta leg of the trip.’ He looks sympathetic. ‘Sorry, bro.’

Brandon twists his mouth, and falls into another stretch.

-

Room 2115, Brandon’s phone says when a text flashes up from Smitty.

He texts back with his gratitude, and slides his tie under his collar, knots it neatly. The locker room is subdued. They deserved that win, Brandon knows.

He leaves quietly, clapping a hand on Gio’s shoulder on the way out. ‘We’ll get ‘em next time,’ Gio says, looking up and grinning.

‘Yeah,’ Brandon says, half-smiles, and leaves.

He wonders when it’s going to stop being weird that he doesn’t wear the Indian head anymore.

-

Andy opens the door in just sweats. He’s bleary eyed, like he’d been napping, but they narrow when he looks up at Brandon and he moves to shut the door.

Brandon risks it, and sticks his foot out between the door and the jamb.

‘And-- Shawsy.’

Andy stops, glares at him.

‘What do you want?’

‘I came to see how you were doing. Mo said you were concussed.’

‘Mo needs to learn to keep his goddamn mouth shut,’ Andy mutters. ‘I’m fine. Barely concussed.’

Brandon looks at him. The room behind him is dim, the light turned as low as it’ll go. Andy scowls.

‘You’ve seen how I’m doing. You can go now.’ He pushes at Brandon with one hand and tries closing the door again.

‘I miss you.’ Brandon didn’t mean to say that.

Didnt mean to say anything, really, but it’s out there. He tilts his chin up when Andy looks at him.

‘You left,’ Andy says. Cold, hard, accusing.

‘I got _traded_ ,’ Brandon says. ‘I didn’t have a _choice_.’

He says nothing.

‘What was I supposed to do, Andy?’ Andy flinches at the name, and scowls at the floor. ‘You think I wanted to leave?’

‘You promised,’ Andy says, and Brandon is suddenly reminded that he’s so young. Just barely twenty three, just barely not a kid. He always did make Brandon feel ancient.

‘I know,’ Brandon says. ‘And I shouldn’t have promised that. It wasn’t fair to either of us. But, Andy.’ He pauses. ‘You still have Chicago. You still have the team. You still have the apartment, and you still have Arnold.’ Andy opens his mouth, but Brandon keeps going. ‘I have an empty apartment in a city I don’t know and a locker room that I don’t really understand.’

Andy shuts his mouth.

‘I’m sorry I left. Really. Truly. But you’re not the only person who lost something in this trade.’ Brandon sounds angry. He tries to dial it back, and accidentally blurts out, ‘I love you.’

Andy looks like he’s been punched. ‘Brandon,’ he says.

‘I never wanted to break up,’ Brandon says, gentle. Soft. ‘You were the one who stopped picking up the phone.’

‘I didn’t want to want you if I couldn’t have you here,’ Andy says, painfully blunt and honest, like he always was.

Brandon steps into the hotel room, shuts the door behind him. This isn’t a conversation he particularly wants to have in hearing of his rowdy and possibly halfway to wasted ex-teammates.

‘I’m here now,’ he says, slowly. ‘Calgary to O’Hare is a three and a half hour flight. I can’t be here all the time. But I can try.’

Andy’s still looking at him. Brandon risks it, and reaches out for him, brushing knuckles over the scar tissue high on Andy’s cheekbone. Presses his thumb against the more recent stitches on the bridge of his nose.

He’s always loved mapping out Andy’s scars. Andy’s eyes are half-shut. His tongue darts out, wets his lower lip.

‘Maybe it won’t work, Brandon says, dropping his voice. ‘But we’re both grown ass men.’ He steps just a little closer. Andy shudders. ‘Tell me you don’t at least want to try, and I’ll walk away. You don’t have to see me again until next month, and then not again for the rest of the season.’

Andy closes his eyes completely at that, and he takes a single, deep breath.

‘Okay,’ he says.

Brandon’s fingers dip lower, thumb into the hollow of his throat. He can feel Andy’s pulse jackrabbiting. His hands are big enough that he can feel the soft hair at the nape of Andy’s neck with the tips of his fingers. He tugs Andy forward, just a little. ‘Okay, what?’ he asks, barely above a whisper.

Andy swallows. Licks his lips again. Brandon feels his pulse jumping. ‘I wanna try. Again. With you.’ He opens his eyes.

Brandon kisses him. He’s never had to be careful with Andy before but he is now, dipping his head down and dropping a hand to his waist. He tastes like chocolate, and Brandon smirks, pulls away long enough to say, ‘That doesn’t taste like the diet plan Julie has you on.’

Andy gins back, presses another quick kiss to Brandon’s lips. ‘What she doesn’t know won’t hurt,’ he says, punctuating his words with kisses along Brandon’s jaw and down his throat, nipping at a bruise. His terrible moustache tickles, and Brandon twists away from it.

‘It’s adorable that you think she won’t find out,’ Brandon says, and tugs him back up so he can kiss him again.

They end up on Andy’s bed, Brandon laid out beneath him as they kiss lazily, neither one of them interested in taking things further, and Brandon suddenly yawns, breaking off the kiss.

‘Gross,’ Andy says. ‘You’re such an old man.’

‘Only one of us played a game today, brat. We can’t all lie around in a hotel room all day,’ Brandon says, digging his fingers into Andy’s ribs until he yelps and squirms.

‘Will you stay here?’ Andy asks, suddenly. He props himself up on Brandon’s chest and looks down at him. He still looks so young, even with the moustache.

‘Sure,’ Brandon says, and rolls Andy off so he can get up and try to salvage his crumpled suit.

He hangs the jacket and pants up, but the shirt is a lost cause, and he leaves it crumpled on the floor, clambers back into bed with Andy.

Andy traces a yellow-green bruise on his hip with one finger. It doesn’t really hurt anymore, so Brandon just shifts around until he’s on his back, pulls Andy on top of him.

‘I missed you too,’ Andy mumbles, face mashed into Brandon’s collarbone. ‘I’m sorry it took me so long to sort my shit out.’ Brandon kisses the top of his head.

‘Go to sleep, brat.’

-

Brandon totally has to do the walk of shame the next morning, in his crumpled suit. He makes it all the way to the lobby when he runs into Smitty, who looks him up and down.

‘Did you fix it?’ he asks.

Brandon ducks his head and nods. Smitty grins brightly, and gives him a fistbump. ‘Awesome. I’ll see you in December, dude.’

‘It’s our turn to win,’ Brandon says, and Smitty laughs, pulls him into a one armed hug, and heads for the elevators.

-

(It’s not their turn to win, apparently, but Brandon does finally get to fuck Andy in the bedroom of the condo he bought a couple of weeks before being traded, so he’s calling it a win anyway.)

**Author's Note:**

> arnold is a great dane, andrew shaw's fictional giant dog. he thinks he's a lapdog, and he is, in as much as he likes to sit in people's laps. that's not really relevant to the story at all, but i like to keep you all informed. he'll probably appear in future stories.


End file.
